Working on my Showreel
Hello. I´m currently working on my Showreel (Portfolio) and i prepared a scene in Unreal, wich i want to lead the camera through whilst swapping forth and back between the video and turntables i prepared and recorded. I would like your feedback on my Props. (And please harsh ones, because i want to apply with that).
I have about 3 more scenes like these, but its the general theme, topology, geometry/colors etc. and i think it would take too much space uploading everything.
I was looking out for Polycount. Many assets have Backface culling. I was aiming at about 3-500 Tris for little Assets and about 2000 for Moderate Assets. High End Assets have about 5700 Tris.
I have about 3 more scenes like these, but its the general theme, topology, geometry/colors etc. and i think it would take too much space uploading everything.
I was looking out for Polycount. Many assets have Backface culling. I was aiming at about 3-500 Tris for little Assets and about 2000 for Moderate Assets. High End Assets have about 5700 Tris.
Replies
Showreel is an outdated method for showing game art, and shouldn't be used. Do you have a teacher who is telling you to make a flythrough and/or 360 spinners? I'll bet the teacher has never worked in games, or they have very little production and hiring experience. No hiring manager wants to sit through a flythru and spinners.
Take a look at how actual employed game artists show their work. It's almost all still shots, and occasionally a realtime interactive view like Marmoset Toolbag or Sketchfab. Well-framed stills, with breakdowns of the textures (albedo, rough, metal, occlusion, etc.).
The wireframe density of your models is inconsistent. The logs below the cauldron have a ton of sides, compared to the cauldron itself. The knobs on the side of the circular desk are super dense with edges, compared to the roundness of the desk. If you want to show off wireframes, it would help to take a closer look at topology for game assets.
Keep going, you're doing great. These need a bit more finesse to be hire-able quality, but I have no doubt you'll get there as you're showing a lot of promise at this point!
I'd be curious to see references you're using. Construction details and proportions of the furniture could be improved, like showing that they're built from boards, not carved out of solid blocks. Bit weird that the cauldron is made of wood, but maybe those exist.
You don't show any UVs or textures atlases. Do assets use individual textures or tiling ones? Currently the materials look a bit basic.
Keep it up!
Except the 3 old pieces for the game i worked waay back then, the rest is actually exactly what i wanted to use for the showreel.
I use individual textures. I know how to use Substance Painter and all, but i never used Trimsheets or tiling Textures.
Those are the UV´s for the Bottleshelf and Desk
Hey. Thanks for the critique.
You´re right, i should´ve mentioned or not even included the logs, bubbles and smoke. Those are for "decoration" only, because Marmoset doesnt support particle effects. They were made on the fly.
I will keep the details in mind. Thanks for that.
I still wonder a bit about the Showreel being outdated. Actually everything i could find even in 2023 mentions Showreels. Even the Jobs i wanted to apply wished for a Showreel. Or do you mean how they´re presented in general?
My opinion is to include animation where it makes sense, if there's fx or animation in the asset. Otherwise it's generally a waste of the Art Director's time.
Working as someone who has hired teams of artists, it's a time-consuming task to review a lot of artists' portfolios, and there are definitely portfolios that do a good job of presenting their work. This thread is really old but it's still very spot-on in describing what's important, from a hiring person's perspective: Your Portfolio Repels Jobs
This is a great thread to see what works, what gets a junior artist hired: https://polycount.com/discussion/187512/recently-hired-in-aaa-show-us-your-portfolio/p1 Looking through the most recent ones, here's an artist with a similar handpainted style who I thought did a good job presenting their work https://thomasfraser.artstation.com/
Best of luck in your search, and I hope this helps!